


The Shroudmaker

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Saiyuki Ibun
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:27:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jikoku’s secretary may have a thing for a well-muscled man, but Toudai teaches him about the other forms of strength.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shroudmaker

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 yuletide-smut Giftfic exchange on Dreamwidth for Ibun Toudai and 'Jikaku’s hot, unnamed assistant'.
> 
> Prompt: Jikaku’s assistant has a thing for muscular men, and Sanzo candidate Toudai is exactly his type.

**Disclaimer:** This Saiyuki fanfiction story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Kazuya Minekura. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
 **Warnings:** Explicit adult situations in adult language. Violence, noncon (but not between the protags.)  


  


**THE SHROUDMAKER**

 

 

**Part One**   


As the five sanzos drew closer to Taisou, complications inevitably popped up like rats from endangered bolt-holes.

From the corners of his eyes, Mr. Secretary noticed shadows scuttling, dead leaves skittering across the packed earth of the footpath where it was sheltered from the snow, crows gathering on dead branches, and a very disturbing vision where phantom hands emerged from the sides of the pathways he walked to clutch at his ankles as though trying to drag him underground — signs and omens and misdirections.

“I think you should see these, sir.” Ryuzin, had drawn him aside, and shown him some documents from the Sea of Sand Temple’s student exchange request.

When Ryuzin had first arrived as a sanzo candidate, Taisou’s executive administrator experienced instant rapport – closer than kin. All sanzo candidates, without consideration of prestige or wealth, were required to take on the tasks of running the monastery, from the cleaning of latrines to medical training in the infirmary. Mr. Secretary ensured that his assistant, the first administrative clerk, Reiji, who assigned the duty roster, put Ryuzin in the office as often as possible. Just as he thought, Ryuzin proved to be an exemplary member of their support staff — stalwart in the face of opposition from other clerks who had worked there longer. He was like a battle charger in a stable of midget ponies, albeit an acid-tongued stallion ill-inclined to suffer mules.

As soon as he looked at the documents, the executive administrator felt a strange interference fall over his vision, like someone was trying to cloak his eyes, a sort of blurred dizziness.

“Oh!”

“Yes, you noticed it, too.” His affirmation clearly meant something to Ryuzin, whose voice suddenly sounded clearer and more confident. How strange that something like this could even shake one of the finest sanzo candidates. Of course, Ryuzin was new to the office, but this bore the signature signs of magic, some sort of obstructionism. An invisible warding spell deliberately deflected attention from the document’s contents.

He asked Ryuzin to repeat what he had been telling him. “What am I supposed to be seeing here?”

“It struck me as odd that a temple in a wholly different region of China would request these particular exchanges. Why are they going to all this extra effort to give the arrangements a veneer of official approval?”

Mr. Secretary nodded, but felt a bit disappointed. This wasn’t the issue at all.

“I presumed they were angling for us to send them a sanzo,” he said. “A lot of the temples do, you know. Also, most our monks fan out across the country after training.”

“But if they are asking for a sanzo, isn’t that a decision the sanzo would make?”

“It’s a decision the Sanbatsushin would make, in consultation with the affected sanzo.”

“Yes, of course,” Ryuzin said. “The point remains that we don’t make these decisions, so why go through the charade of asking?”

“I would say that if someone wants something, the best policy is to ask. At least their request is public knowledge. Even if we have no authority to designate locations for the high priests, there’s no harm in exchanging a few of our monks for a year or two — just to keep things from getting stagnant. But surely this isn’t what you wanted to discuss with me?”

“No,” Ryuzin frowned, taking a moment to clear his head. At least, that’s what it looked like. This particular magic covered everything with a black fog, the only means of recognizing magical interference that Mr. Secretary could recognize.

“There’s a skeleton crew in the office today?” The secretary checked. Reiji was working in the library section with other senior members of the office staff, clearing out boxes of obsolete documents in preparation for the coming of the high priests. The only person left behind to watch over the new hot-shot sanzo candidate was old Masume, who was almost deaf.

Ryuzin pushed his glasses up onto his nose, an action as contagious as yawning. The secretary followed suit, pushing his reading glasses up as well, as though this made their thinking sharper.

“It’s just that most of these haven’t got your chop mark.” Ryuzin scowled. “You haven’t seen these yet, have you?”

Mr. Secretary felt his limbs grow heavy. “No, I haven’t.”

Was this all Ryuzin was able to find?

“When I saw that it looked like you weren’t being kept abreast of the discussions, I pulled all the files. It struck me that you were being cut out of most of the negotiations.”

Although he was usually granted some degree of oversight during such processes, even that level of omission wasn’t unheard of. The secretary struggled to tune in a little closer. There was something wrong. He could feel it. He knew Ryuzin could feel it. But this wasn’t enough.

He glanced at the documents again. Gichou, Seijin … some of the names mentioned in the documents were from the first faction. Quite a few of them were from the lesser groups.

Mr. Secretary glanced at the initials and chops. All the documents had been stamped by the first administrative clerk, which also wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t necessary for the secretary to oversee such negotiations, but these ones certainly extended beyond the scope of Reiji’s authority.

That was it! Reiji had no right to send sanzo candidates who had not completed their testing. In any case, unless they dropped out of the race, the usual end was death, so there was no point in proclaiming their availability to other monasteries. Why was he doing it?

“Thank you for drawing this to my attention.” He handed the file back to Ryuzin. “Summarize this in brief notes for me: who, what, where, when and so forth, and bring it to me directly, as soon as you’re finished. Don’t leave it on my desk. Don’t give it to anyone else. How much time do you need?”

“Without interruptions, the rest of the week.” Ryuzin shrugged. “I’m not sure if I have all the files.”

“Take as long as you need, although I need it as soon as possible.”

Mr. Secretary was deep in thought as he left. It disturbed him that someone from outside the scene, probably from outside the monastery, was trying to change the outcome of the sanzo trials. It left him with the distinct impression of a nest of insects trying to burrow from underground into their affairs, a primordial mindfulness more of instinct than ordinary intelligence, and of greatest concern in terms of what was driving it.

He decided to ask Reiji directly why he made pledges on behalf of Taisou which the Monastery of Great Frost couldn’t possibly honour, but by the time he arrived at the library, the matter had completely slipped his mind.

He stood in the doorway, blinking, trying to chase down the fading shreds of memory, realizing that he was under the effect of magical interference, but utterly unable to stop it.

The clerks were hard at work with the library archivists, getting rid of old tax documents and property assessments, unpacking boxes, feeding paper through the shredders. It was a tedious and dusty job. At the sight of him standing there, confused, they stopped. One of them gave Reiji a nudge.

“Was there something you wanted, Mr. Secretary-sama?” The chief clerk hopped to his feet.

There was always so much to remember. He tried to recall.

“Reiji, the supplies of wood we’ve stored at our crematoria are too low.”

“Yes, sir.”

The chief administrative clerk opened a new memo in his handheld, and thumbed in the details.

“Tell Zouryou to bring the fourth faction to the western forest to thin out deadfall from the last windstorm.” The executive secretary suppressed a wolfish grin. The question was whether there were any monks in that faction with enough guts to stand up to the old sadist.

“Yes, Mr. Secretary-sama.”

“We require an additional — let’s see ….” His expression sobered. One or two careless contestants might end up with pneumonia or rheumatic fever as a result of the Frozen River Trial slated for that afternoon, but the Avalanche Test was the deadliest. From the pace set for the candidates by Abbot Jikoku-sama, the arrival of the sanzos had to be imminent. “Prepare a dozen cords with all the proper observances.”

As he left the room for his next task, he overheard someone say, “Zouryou! It won’t only be trees and deadfall that we’ll be thinning out.”

That was the plan.

“Ugh. He’s so creepy. Did you see how his eyes lit up?”

“Right! It’s like you can hear him thinking, ‘Yum-yum, fire up the crematorium, honey. It’s dinner time.’”

Mr. Secretary’s ears burned.

“Ssshhh! Enough idle chatter.”

Reiji was an efficient and clever task manager who understood the way the wind blew.

“Shroudmaker-sama can still hear you.”

 

 

As a rule, every morning at precisely seven o’clock, Mr. Secretary took it upon himself to bring the breakfast tray to Jikoku-sama’s room — not because he had to, but because he enjoyed their time alone. Cellphones were turned off, laptops set on standby, and they would share their repast, ignoring what needed to be done when and where and by whom. Jikoku-sama would sometimes share some gossip he’d picked up at the brothel, or news from the larger realm brought in by visitors. Mr. Secretary might describe something unusual he’d seen during the course of his days, but usually they ate without chatting.

Only after the last crumb was polished off and the tea was poured would conversation turn to business. It wasn’t fair or accurate to say that the business of Taisou began in earnest after breakfast, since Mr. Secretary — the perennial beast of burden, a stone bridge — was always hard at work before dawn, but their shared time was an important ritual for him, as necessary as clear communication and performance of duties. Today, because of the diversion to the library, Mr. Secretary was running behind.

As he drew near the kitchen, he sensed a strong killing intent, an unmistakable aura of evil that jabbed his solar plexus almost like being stabbed with knives. He closed his eyes. The flame of a candle grew in the center of the darkness. Suddenly, it blossomed into a daylight scene. He saw stones laid out on a pathway. They seemed to crawl. He looked more closely and discovered they were covered with slugs – clear, gelatinous slugs covered with black sesame seeds and cashews. As they slithered over the paving stones, he realized that the cashews and sesame seeds were hiding sharp, poisonous spines.

As a result, when Mr. Secretary opened his eyes, he discovered and prevented a series of jellied sweets with broken glass added to them from being served up at the dining hall. Like the slugs in his vision, they gave a lifelike quiver when poked, and the cashews and sesame seeds disguised the texture of the glass. The plates upon which they had been set were all made of slate, like paving stones.

Nobody could identify who had been in charge of this particular dish. Someone mentioned seeing a stranger lurk at the doorway to the kitchen, but it had been so busy. There were the usual mutterings in the less gifted factions, especially about Houmei and Genkai, mutterings which Mr. Secretary had previously dismissed as envy. He decided to pay closer attention to the people who muttered most.

He tasted and cleared a fresh set of dishes, and prepared a new tray for the abbot.

These weren’t the only incidents that had troubled Mr. Secretary that morning. Overnight, a shrine at the crest of the pass leading into the valley had been vandalized, so he sent off a team of Taisou’s ‘irregulars’ — some of the boys from the local town who liked to earn a little extra pocket money — to uncover leads about who might be responsible.

He wondered if it was connected to an incident where a local family, the Masumura farmers, had lost their home to fire. On behalf of the monastery, Mr. Secretary asked them to board their animals in Taisou’s stables so they could live in their outbuildings until they were able to rebuild in the spring. He instructed the chef to send mochi, tofu and winter vegetables home with the wife.

As he picked up the breakfast tray and carried it across the compound to Jikoku-sama’s quarters, Mr. Secretary tried to extend his senses into the invisible realms to see if he couldn’t detect where the next attack might come from, and thwart it.

The changes in the atmosphere were palpable, a descent of a fine glistening light energy, pearly like moonlight, sweet like honey, soft and tender. That would emanate from one of the many acolytes striving to become sanzos. The light had already chosen them. But behind that sweet and softly reflective moonlight, an unimaginable force — a light so powerful and brilliant, it could shake Tougenkyou apart. That would be the older sanzos. They were coming.

Still, there was another … it was just there, just behind the dazzling, earth-shattering brilliance … something new, something unimaginable … it was … it—it— it disappeared every time he tried to perceive it, or grasp it, or touch it with his mind. He couldn’t quite pick it up. But he knew it was there, and it was unlike anything the world had ever experienced.

As light grew, so did the causal pressure upon the monastery and all the people living and working in it and in the surrounding valley and woods.

Even the animals were feeling it.

Death!

Mr. Secretary felt it. Something had interfered with a falcon flying overhead. He felt the creature’s intent and almost dropped the breakfast tray in his haste to make it to Jikoku-sama’s chambers in time.

The falcon plummeted from the sky and impaled itself on a slat from the bamboo shutters over Jikoku-sama’s window, narrowly missing the monk. Mr. Secretary hadn’t been able to run fast enough to prevent the incident. Fortunately, Jikoku-sama was sufficiently attuned that he closed the shutters before the diving raptor struck him. By the time the secretary arrived, the shutters were shattered and the bird was a warm corpse with its blood, gore and feathers splattered over the walls and floor, but the abbot was unharmed.

“Who, of all the disciples, has been attracting the most resistance, the most obstacles?” Jikoku-sama asked Mr. Secretary under his breath, as his servants started to clear away the mess.

“That would be Houmei,” he said. “But he attracts it to himself, deliberately and consciously, I think.”

“He has made a habit of that,” Jikoku-sama nodded, washing his face and hands and replacing his outer garment. “Who is he sheltering? Who is he protecting?”

Mr. Secretary centered, closed his eyes, and asked the image of Houmei to appear in his mind. As usual, the young man refused to cooperate, waving around his bathhouse towel like a matador’s cape, sticking out his tongue, waggling his bare butt and then disappearing behind clouds of steam. All of this, Mr. Secretary related to Jikoku-sama, who laughed and called him ‘an impudent little fucker.’

“We will find something out today, although I’m not sure how clear or relevant it will be.” Jikoku-sama nodded as they watched a monk remove gore-encrusted slats of wood from the window sill, and then turned his attention to the tray Mr. Secretary still carried. “Is that our breakfast? Ah, brilliant! Let’s eat.”

So, while servants scraped falcon feathers and entrails into a dustpan, and sluiced the floor with soap and water, the abbot and Mr. Secretary sat down and ate.

At last the servants left. A small candle and incense were lit to cleanse the atmosphere, the only signs that an act of black magic had transpired and failed. Even the shutter had been replaced. Mr. Secretary poured their tea.

“How many bodies are you picking up from the Avalanche Test?” Jikoku-sama sipped at the teabowl. The Frozen River Test had not happened, and he was already measuring the next challenge’s outcomes.

“That’s the funny thing.” The Shroudmaker could see who would die for sure, like a giant had smudged dirty fingers across their faces, wiping out their features and leaving behind only shadow. Another group, though, fazed in and out of his visions — all of them wearing similar military uniforms. “The shadows keep shifting. I don’t know which way the results will swing.”

“So, things still hang in the balance.” Jikoku-sama tapped the tips of his fingers together, thinking.

“Did your ‘favourite pupils’” — Mr. Secretary’s uncomfortable euphemism for the hostesses at the brothel near the highway — “mention any rumours of war? Border conflicts? Raids?”

The abbot looked up sharply. “Not a word. Why?”

The secretary looked out the window, trying to collect his thoughts. The Chief Administrative Clerk was standing at the front gate and, from the sharp articulation of his gestures and the belligerence of his stance, appeared to be angry with the gatekeeper.

“It could be the influence of a past life.” He muttered, dismissing the spectral mists that dimmed his thoughts.

Jikoku-sama blew away a wisp of steam rising off his cup.

Two decades prior, a very young Mr. Secretary had dropped out of the previous contest for the Chakyamuni Sutras at Jikoku-sama’s request. Jikoku-sama felt nobody was more suited to the job of organizing Taisou’s logistics.

For all its reputation as the burning ground for sanzos, other monasteries were dropping affiliations at that time with the Temple of Great Frost like wasps at summer’s end. The previous abbot, a weak man, was prone to pettiness and grudges. Years of infighting and backbiting had left the infrastructure such a mess, entire departments refusing to communicate with each other. The former abbot’s favourites — the laziest, most incompetent group of teachers and managers Mr. Secretary had ever beheld — ascended to positions of authority where they oppressed their juniors who, in turn, behaved suspiciously, mulishly and always up for sabotage. Rituals were meaningless. Villagers stopped donating to the shrines. The books were a scandal. The entire region had grown sludge-souled and danger-grimed. As Jikoku-sama weeded out the teaching staff, Mr. Secretary worked through the administration and support staff. They made a good team.

Yet, there had been a time, many years before … before he accepted Jikoku-sama’s challenge, when Mr. Secretary attained consistent first-flight ranking in the list of contenders for the sanzo title.

Although he had a sacred name — kept secret by himself and Jikoku-sama who had discovered it because it was a conduit to his power — the name his parents had given him was long forgotten. Mr. Secretary, or Secretary-Sama, or Sir was how he was addressed by everyone, even the abbot and the sanzos, but only those monks who remained alive after the last sanzo selection process remembered his true stature. Only a few had the nerve to refer to him as ‘Shroudmaker’.

“What do you see with regards to our young youkai candidate?” Jikoku-sama cloaked his eyes.

Genkai’s image glowed in the secretary’s mind, borne on the strong and capable shoulders of Toudai. He described the scene.

“Interesting.”

A shiver of alarm ran up the younger man’s spine. Whenever he caught that extra glint of light glowing behind the abbot’s eyebrows, he knew the cagey old guy picked up on something he’d missed.

“I think you should give Toudai some special training. If he’s taken on extra karma, he will need extra attention.”

Mr. Secretary nodded, and added it to his interminable things-to-do list.

 

 

It was overcast by the time two dozen acolytes were led to the gully bisecting the eastern forest. Temperatures hovered at the freezing mark for the Frozen River test. Although mushroom caps of ice and snow had sprouted over its rocks, the river wasn’t actually frozen. Its water flowed at precisely four degrees Celsius, enough to cause the onset of death by Level Three hypothermia within fifteen minutes if a body remained submerged — although if a contestant was knocked out, he would mostly likely drown first. Mr. Secretary quickly scratched out a calculation of the odds on the lower left hand corner of an old-fashioned clipboard. It was too wet for electronic tablets.

There had been that one incident in his time: the pale white and blue-gray skin of the corpse; the cocoon-like layers of cloth the monks had wrapped around the body before it was hauled out of the ravine on a stretcher; the attempts to resuscitate life by gently warming the body temperature defeating them. All four factions had been engaged in the Frozen River combat that day so many years before, and the gully full of candidates had looked exactly like a shoal of sardines washed by tidal flow onto a stretch of sand — flailing and splashing pitifully as the wave pulls out.

So much confusion and turmoil had masked the acolyte’s distress, no others picked up on it — not even the infamous Shroudmaker. Even he could be blindsided by too much noise and activity.

“Why didn’t you help him?” His friend had to be held off by Mr. Secretary’s team mates. His neck still acted up from the sucker-punch that landed on his jaw back then. Although he’d known it was coming, he took it — figured he deserved it. “That’s your gift, isn’t it? Why would you keep it to yourself?”

Knots tightened across his forehead. The incident was held as a stain in an otherwise impeccable career — not by Jikoku-sama, or most others in the monastery, but by him — a caution against pride and complacency. Even though he and the dead man’s friend were told to release their karmic debt and practice non-attachment, he knew that the other candidate was unsatisfied. He was still blamed. It still impeded his progress.

This time only members of the first faction would fight each other. With less confusion, there was less chance of a similar incident. If nothing else, he could put his experience to good use.

“The purpose of this test is not to fall into the water,” Abbot Jikoku-sama explained to the men after they gathered in the snow and stripped away their robes. Their fundoshi offered little protection against the elements.

Mr. Secretary bobbed on his toes, delighted with the view. He loved the sight of an exquisitely honed male body, and there were so many of them here, gathered in one spot.

Criteria for elimination rounds were never what they appeared on the surface. They were replacing high priests, after all, not secretaries. His eyes scanned the group; although if it was fated to be a completely clean sweep for a clean slate, then the one most likely to replace him as executive secretary would be …

Seiren was the most akin on the soul level, but Ryuzin was better suited to the job.

To the right beside Ryuzin, the acolyte least likely to replace Mr. Secretary shivered violently, hopping from one foot to the other in the snow, clutching his shoulders as though they were life buoys, huffing noisy little cloud-puffs of evaporating steam as he grumbled and sniffed about the cold, the wet, the test, the snow, the rain, the river, the (nonexistent) wind, the lack of adequate breakfast, the lack of adequate sleep, the draughty dormitories, the chances of catching some unspeakable fatal illness and — oh, the inhumanity! The inhumanity!

Mr. Secretary suppressed a chuckle, especially after the one called Doutaku turned around and told the culprit to shut his whiny little baby girly-boy gob.

“The men of the first faction are certainly quite vigorous.” Jikoku-sama mentioned after the combat began.

“Indeed. They are certainly worthy of being called ‘they who are closest to becoming a sanzo priest’.” He didn’t even have to bite his tongue when he said it.

A crow croaked out a warning, and in that exact moment,at the periphery of his vision, a fall of raven-black hair scythed against the snowy backdrop like a massive wing.

So graceful. So powerful. Mr. Secretary could barely keep the corners of his eyes from the man. Toudai was massive, a tall warrior with strength enough to pluck the hapless Genkai from his collapsing floe as though he weighed no more than a Shihtsu terrier. In one graceful sweep, as his hair swirled around his body like the black half of a yin-yang symbol, the big disciple set the tiny demon on another, more stable platform. Without question, this acolyte had complete mastery over his body, and in his case, mastery over mind and emotions, which meant that he was a fine person to befriend.

Mr. Secretary licked his lips. How he looked forward to—

What the hell was he doing! He was a chief administrator of the monastery and one of the most important trials since the foundation of their order was happening. Mr. Secretary forced his thoughts to clear, his yearning to dissipate, and his body to settle down. He tore his eyes away from Toudai.

“Priest Jikaku, I haven’t seen any sign of Houmei for awhile.”

“Good grief. Not him again.”

 

 

The clouds and snow had turned periwinkle blue with dusk and the evergreens were charcoal silhouettes by the time they returned to Taisou. The monastery should have gleamed golden and welcoming with lights and warm fires as they climbed the great staircase, but it was silent and dark.

Puzzled, Mr. Secretary hurried to see what was the matter. He discovered the gatekeeper asleep in a dead-drunken stupor on the floor of the sentry turret. The man was instantly roused and sacked.

Reiji flew at him because of this. “Do you know how difficult it is to get someone willing to sit out there, especially when the temperatures drop to minus-twenty?”

“What’s the point of having anyone there if they are too inebriated to guard the building?”

The chief administrative clerk’s lips snapped shut.

“You’ve dealt with him about this before, haven’t you? I was inclined to hold him responsible for today’s food tampering attack on our first faction sanzo candidates. We could’ve had a serious tragedy on our hands.”

“We haven’t discounted the possibility that may have been an inside job yet.” Reiji objected. “It seems more likely.”

“That may well be. But I would rather have nobody at the gate, and everyone on alert for a potential attack, than an incompetent lush who passes out and lets an army of assassins through while everyone sleeps, lured into a false sense of security. Why have pretend guards? What’s the point of that?”

Reiji had no response. He stood by, silent and grim, as rotational shifts of night guards were lined up within that hour, including from some of the sanzo candidates themselves. Doutaku and Shou’un expressed such particular enthusiasm for it, the list was quickly amended to separate them and include Toudai — just to keep them from bullying visitors. What disturbed the secretary most about his exchange with the chief administrative clerk was the point, halfway through, where Reiji’s face suddenly started to disappear as though it was eaten up by dark mists.

To the Shroudmaker, this could only mean one thing. Whatever it was that happened between the two of them had resulted in a death sentence for Reiji. His fate had been sealed, and there wasn’t a thing Mr. Secretary could do to turn the cycle back. It was only a matter of time.

 

 

The Frozen River Trial debriefing was intense. It was interesting to note how each instructor’s favourites reflected their own personal strengths. The monk who taught scripture pushed for Seiran and Ryuzin. Zouryou preferred Shou’un. Only the chief administrative clerk bucked the trend, snippily dismissing Ryuzin as a ‘swot’. The secretary had to google what Reiji meant — although once he learned its meaning, he failed to see how it could be taken as a mark against the young man. The secretary was the very definition of a swot himself.

The debate carried on late into the evening. It was two in the morning before Taisou’s executive secretary finally got to bed.

The pace continued to harry him the next morning. Before breakfast, Mr. Secretary had already checked through the paperwork which closed procurement of the next quarter’s rice and soy supplies. A group of monks from the third faction were dispatched to repair wind damage to the roof over the main temple, and Shinimori from the third faction was sent to unstick some bricks that had fallen into the chimney of the classroom. To his irritation, Masashi had been careless with the bookkeeping in the outreach programs again, and it took three clerks an hour to collect the missing receipts from various teachers.

Breakfast hadn’t even been prepared when the whirl of activity got too hectic. Mr. Secretary heeded the previous day’s memory of the unnamed acolyte’s death at his own Frozen River Trial as it warned him against letting noise and busy-making interfere with his inner senses. He booked off a half-hour to sit and restore himself by the koi pool on the northern exterior side of the bathhouse. It was surrounded by trees and hemmed in by a gully, so very few people ever wandered there. Even in winter, when the pool looked like a black slate tile between the mounds of snow and the fish had been removed to aquarium tanks in the monastery cellars, he would take time to go. There, he would clear his mind of all thoughts, and simply experience the brisk, cool air against his cheeks in contrast to the warmth of his many-layered kimonos; the smell of evergreens and damp, mossy ground between the patches of snow; the sound of the wind in the treetops, and wind which never reached him where he sat, and occasionally the noises of overwintering songbirds and jackdaws.

It was not always quiet; nature never was, but sometimes, fresh snow would swallow most sounds and everything would lie so still, he could stretch his hearing over the entire valley. He could hear children at play in the village far over in the next valley. He could hear their teachers call them in for their morning lessons. Lately, he had been trying to stretch his hearing so that he could hear the footfalls of the approaching sanzos. He could feel them, more than hear them, though — an unusual extra vibration in the space between his heartbeats.

On this particular morning, Mr. Secretary glanced into the pool and was struck for the first time by how much he had aged. He had come into the monastery as a youth. There were tiny lines around his eyes, now, and at the corners of his mouth. There, right at his temple in the licks of hair that would not let him comb them flat, three silver hairs gleamed. His first!

A curious sensation like a cold, steel spring coiled around his heart and contracted. It gave a squeeze so tight and painful, he lost his breath. His life was full enough, and in being of service to so many, rich; so why did he feel like he had missed out? Had he been right to pass on the chance to be a sanzo? Had he truly lived up to his fullest potential?

Just in that moment, he heard a twig snap.

“Beg your pardon, sir.” Without turning to look, he recognized Toudai from the deepness of his voice and the height from the ground at which it was spoken. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”

“It’s fine.” Mr. Secretary dipped his fingers into the pond and agitated the surface, all traces of reflection lost in the wake. “I’m just surprised to see you outside the dormitory after yesterday’s trial. I thought you and the others would be steeping the stiffness of your muscles away in a hot bath.”

The sound of Toudai’s footsteps crunched down the path to where he crouched on the rocks.

“The baths were getting a little too—” Toudai broke off his complaint when he realized that it sounded like he was complaining. “I wasn’t hungry.”

The secretary finally turned to look. Beads of moisture clustered around Toudai’s hairline, the result of overheating in spite of the winter climate. Heat rolled off the man’s body in waves. Only the narrowest of wrinkles on his forehead fractured his composure. Something was troubling him. “Careful not to make a habit of that! You don’t want to lose your strength.”

Toudai dropped down onto a patch of gravel next to the secretary. Together, they sat and enjoyed the peace, quiet and fresh air.

“Can I ask why you saved Genkai yesterday?”

“Not sure, exactly.” Toudai’s frown deepened. “Just felt he needed a hand. Why? Did I mess up?”

“You tell me. He is your rival.”

“Guess so. I didn’t really think about it. When I saw him putting all his effort in it, making his stand against all these guys who were so much stronger and more powerful than he was—”

“More powerful than a youkai?” Mr. Secretary tested. Genkai suddenly affected him like the whine of a mosquito in a sleeping chamber — a statement of impending transgression, hovering outside the line of vision, but not yet a direct affront.

Toudai looked foolish. “His magic is not harmful, sir.”

The secretary offered him another viewpoint. “As a sanzo entrusted with guarding and embodying a Chakyamuni Sutra, your comrade would be in one of the most dangerous positions in our world. If he were to fall, he wouldn’t only imperil the other sanzos, but our entire world. Do you really want a weakling in that role?”

“No,” Toudai admitted slowly. “I just think there are other kinds of strength.”

The secretary reached over and tried to put his hand around Toudai’s arm. He had long fingers, and they couldn’t even extend around half of it. The young man’s muscles looked cast in bronze. His arms were so clearly defined, they resembled a pit of snakes coiled across his shoulders. He couldn’t have been more attractive to the secretary.

“You’re strong.” He tried not to make it sound like an accusation.

“We are more than just our physical bodies.”

The secretary said nothing, and the answer wasn’t important in any case.

What mattered was the edge that had crept into Toudai’s voice. The secretary was all too aware of how time rode roughshod all over the body. This obviously mattered more to Toudai than he wanted to admit to himself. Otherwise, he wouldn’t care about the different types of strength. Toudai was afraid of the day when he wouldn’t be able to protect others with his strength.

Mr. Secretary patted the shoulder he had just been squeezing, as though offering consolation. In fact, it was the opposite of what he was offering. “It is inevitable that your decision and actions today will be put to the test.”

At that point, Mr. Secretary fully expected Toudai to return to the others. Instead, the young man continued to sit. His presence was so solid, Mr. Secretary knew in that moment, barring a twist of fate, he would become one of the five. Toudai was the embodiment of that energy which held the very atoms together. Just by sitting next to him, Mr. Secretary could feel the various agitations of his own body, mind and emotions calm. It was the energy he emanated. Tension drained away, leaving a sort of languid pleasure, the secretary’s body relaxing exactly the way it had in the distant past, before he tried to become a priest, after a long and thorough session of sex or other gifts of grace. Toudai was one person who didn’t need to worry about strength — any sort of strength.

After he let the peace restore him, his unresolved tasks returned to push at Mr. Secretary’s mind. He got up to leave, just as the breakfast bell rang. Breakfast was very late that morning; everyone involved in making it was probably being extra cautious given the previous day’s near-catastrophe.

“Thank you for your company.” He could feel the softness in his own eyes as he smiled at Toudai.

“I should be thanking you.” The candidate’s expression of surprise was the next thing he took with him as he walked away.

 

 

“Have you learned the identities of the ones who desecrated the Crystal Mountain Shrine yet?” Jikoku-sama asked after their repast was finished.

Mr. Secretary shook his head. He knew something was afoot. That was the worst-kept secret in Tougenkyou. He just didn’t know what shape it was taking, or how it would strike.

“Assemble a team, bring them out to the shrine and conduct your own investigation,” he was instructed.

The secretary frowned, perturbed.

“You have a problem with this?”

“Not per se. I just don’t know if we will make it back in time for the Avalanche Test.”

“You will have the exact amount of time you need. Why is time a problem?”

“If I can assemble my own ‘dream team’, then Toudai would have a place on it – since it was your suggestions that I should give him additional instruction.”

“Not to worry. We won’t proceed with the test until you return.” Jikoku-sama’s voice was unnaturally mild, setting off the secretary’s inner sense of alarm. “We wouldn’t want you to miss your favourite treat.”

That sounded insulting. “I’m sorry?”

The abbot’s eyebrows waggled suggestively.

“I’m not following you at all.”

“I have my ‘favourite pupils’ and you have yours.” With a careless wave, Jikoku-sama pooh-poohed any objection the secretary would’ve raised. “Neither of us is the worse for it. Just make sure that the weather conditions are optimal for us to launch the test this afternoon. I want to get this over with as soon as possible.”

The old uncle had a lot of nerve comparing their particular kama-manas and judging the secretary to be the same as him since, unlike the abbot, from the day he became a monk, the secretary had never visited a brothel. Mr. Secretary bit back his irritation and returned to his duties.

 

 

“Yoshi, has the weather office sent us their predictions for this afternoon?”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary, sir. We expect a warming front off the Western Seas with low ceilings and a sixty-five per cent probability of precipitation.”

Most of Taisou’s monks treated him with the utmost respect. He put it down to the gentle and respectful way he addressed them. “Snow? Or rain?”

“Rain or sleet, turning into snow as it comes into contact with the present inversion from the northwest.”

The hills had been saturated with water before the season’s snowfalls started to accumulate. Rain was a key element to the monastery’s success with the Sanzo trials — if a high death toll could be called success. It destabilized the slopes and made for a more challenging course.

“Temperatures?”

“A hard frost of five-below Celsius last night, warming to plus-three degrees in the afternoon today.”

“Thank you.”

Everything was proceeding perfectly according to plan. Mr. Secretary checked his lists, checked his timetables, checked his inventories, and then, checked them again. Everything, perfect.

So where was this unease which shook his customary poise and confidence coming from?

 

 

By ten-thirty, Mr. Secretary wasn’t so busy that he missed the way Toudai, who had just finished his shift at the front gate, handed Reiji a note to give to him. He snatched it out of Reiji’s fingers before the chief administrative clerk could take a peek.

“I’m right here, Toudai-kun. This isn’t a military operation and, if this is meant for me, there is no chain of command.” Before he opened the paper, he waved it in his fingers, flirtatiously, as though it was a love-letter, batting his eyelids. “You did mean for me to see this, didn’t you?”

The contingent of office workers snickered, which is exactly what the secretary wanted. His teasing tone diffused the tension, especially from Reiji, who saw it as a little jab at one of the sanzo candidates instead of a tactic to cut him out of the loop.

“Well, yes,” Toudai blushed. “But I didn’t want to intrude—”

“You haven’t.”

He quickly scanned the paper, eyes narrowing. The note had nothing on it but a child’s cartoon drawing of hands reaching up from the bottom of the page — hundreds of hands. Gourd hands, light bulb hands, hands with linked sausage fingers.

He could see Toudai turn to leave, and forestalled him. “How did you get this?”

“I was on duty at the gate. A kid shoved it into my hands and said you would want it. He ran off before I could question him, though.”

“The sanzo candidate couldn’t catch a kid.” Mr. Secretary heard the whispers and snickers behind him. His sense of hearing was acute.

“Thank you, Toudai.”

The young man nodded. The two of them stood and stared at each other without saying anything: Mr. Secretary, because the sight of Toudai gave him a thrill, and Toudai — probably because he was waiting to be dismissed.

“I’d better get back,” he finally said, turning away. “Doutaku wanted to chase after the kid.”

“Tell him that won’t be necessary, but let him know he will be on sentry duty alone until the shift is over. Collect your gear and meet me in the compound next to priest Jikoku-sama’s quarters. I have another assignment for you.”

After the candidate left, Mr. Secretary instantly ordered the whisperers off to scrub the latrines.

“It looks like a representation of ‘the unworldly bridge,’” he said, later, passing the note to Jikoku-sama to see if he could make any sense of it. “Though I can’t think of what it could mean.”

“You think that’s what it is?” The abbot’s eyes were especially glinty under those eyebrows.

“It isn’t that unusual for a Buddhist image — the hands of those on the endless wheel of reincarnation reaching up in their torment for help from those on the path to enlightenment, don’t you think?”

“I suppose it could be seen as that.” Jikoku-sama’s lips twitched. “In one way, that is probably a very accurate description.”

He tossed the paper into the fire. “I don’t think the meaning is anything quite so esoteric, though. You mentioned the source was a child and not one of our monks, didn’t you?”

Mr. Secretary resisted the urge to pull the note from the flames, in case there was more in it than either of them had seen.

“Tell me, do your informants even know how to write?” The Abbot stirred up the fire with a poker, ensuring the note was thoroughly incinerated.

“I don’t know. I never thought to ask.” Mr. Secretary thought about his irregulars. Some of them were very young, only seven or eight-years-old, which didn’t mean they lacked an intuitive knowledge of Buddhism.

“It’s quite simple: a person with no access to written language will probably use hieroglyphics or a drawing to communicate, some sort of symbolic language.”

“That makes sense.” The note, however, did not.

“So if you wanted a symbol for the Clan of a Thousand Hands, how would you write it?”

“Oh, I see.” It was so obvious now.

The Centipede Clan, what did they want?

 

 

After their meeting, Mr. Secretary led his work detail of monks to the Crystal Mountain Shrine to learn what repairs were needed. Toudai was among the group, although Mr. Secretary wondered if this was what Jikoku-sama really meant by providing him with extra testing and training.

The walls of the Shrine— attractively constructed from narrow slats of wood woven between sticks while they were still green and pliant, then cured to hardness — had great gaping holes kicked out of them. Charred planks on the floor and black streaks had crawled up the support-pillar to the roof where someone had burnt a hole while trying to set a fire. Fortunately, damp elements had put an end to the arson, but the statue of Kanzeon Bosatsu had been defiled. A set of hands were scrawled in permanent ink over her breasts, her eyes had been blackened out and looked like gaping sockets. If those marks couldn’t be bleached away, then they would need to be carefully filed off. The whole place smelled of smoke, wet ash and urine.

He felt his face harden and grow grim with resolve. He usually tried not to let his darker emotions show, since it had such a dispiriting effect on others. He even noticed Toudai glance away, upset with the change in his countenance. Whenever he was around, Toudai seemed to always be watching him. But today, the secretary couldn’t help himself. He felt sick and angry, as if he had personally been defiled.

The whole mess could’ve been dismissed as unpremeditated. It looked like the work of bored teenaged vandals, and if Mr. Secretary had been the sort of lazy, sloppy investigator who jumped easily to conclusion, that’s where it would’ve remained. But whenever he closed his eyes, greasy black fingerprints coated everything and the place stank of burnt asphalt.

He drew his team’s attention to one particular thing: once, set over the altar, there was a specially carved camphor fretwork panel of the Buddha’s all-seeing third eye, into which some fine translucent jade had been set, the symbol of omniscience — fully open and directed straight through the entrance to the highway beyond. This had been carefully removed and taken away. The secretary searched for signs of the talisman’s destruction. Rebellious teenagers would’ve kicked the panel out with the rest of the woven walls and left the whole mess to rot on the ground. Common thieves would’ve kicked out the panel and removed the jade. He told his team to look for these things.

Not a fragment of camphor could be found anywhere. He was now convinced that the vandalism was a ruse to cover a deliberate and calculated attack, one for the purpose of removing, altogether, important talismans of spiritual sight and protection from this key section of highway, the only road leading in or out of the valley and to the Temple of Great Frost.

“Sir?”

He glanced over his shoulder.

“I think you’ll want to see this.” Under the floorboards, which he had been pulling up in order to cut out the burnt section, Toudai had uncovered something.

“Ugh!”

The bare ground underneath the temple was riddled with tens of thousands of tiny holes in each of which lay dozens of miniscule eggs.

“Centipede eggs, probably.” Toudai explained. “Even if we rebuild, they will work like termites and eat right through the wood.”

“The grounds surrounding the Shrine.” Mr. Secretary’s head was starting to throb. “Are they also corrupted?”

“No,” another monk replied.

“Pull up all these boards, and burn these off. The site is too important for us to be chased off. We will rebuild.”

Along with these words, the secretary dispensed other explicit instructions for the purification and rebuilding of the Shrine. The monks were to remain there until they were replaced by a crew of relief workers. At all times, they were to observe and make note of who used the highway and passed the Shrine. They were also to stay on guard in groups of twos and threes at all times, even if they were only running off to take a leak in the forest.

“There may be another attack. I don’t want to risk losing any of you through carelessness.”

 

 

He, Toudai and another companion followed the highway route home. For some reason, the cellphone transmission tower wasn’t providing service, so they stopped to order special supplies that the monastery didn’t carry: the special square brass nails needed for finishing work, good quality damar to polish the wood, a panel of camphor – Mr. Secretary amended that to entire boards to rebuild the floor when the mailroom clerk told him that the wood was an excellent insect repellent – and a request for an assayer to bring samples of translucent green jade.

Mr. Secretary sat on the verandah to proofread the mailroom clerk’s draft telegraph. The village post office was little more than a set of closets built off the dry goods store. He found the place claustrophobic, and preferred the bite of winter air with all its freshness, to the dark closed-in feeling.

As he sat there, he overheard some old women in the bath and laundry house next door, gossiping. Their voices floated like the hot steam out of the vents just under the eaves.

“I thought, at first, it might be my Hiro’s Ryouji, since he’s been going through such a bad spell, but Ryouji was in detention at the school every night that week. His father would pick him up and march him straight home where he was put to work helping his mother as a punishment. There wasn’t a minute when he was alone.”

“I don’t think it was Mei’s Andou-chan, either. She tells me he’s been trying to clean up his act ever since Hanamura told him she wouldn’t go out with a good-for-nothing who seemed destined for prison or the poorhouse.”

Mr. Secretary suppressed a snort of laughter. Tamotsu Andou was one of his irregulars, and a good enough kid. Mizaki Hanamura, on the other hand, was a little too taken with the comeliness of her form and features and the powers they gave her. At least she was putting those powers to good use, except that she didn’t seem to see Andou for he really was.

“I don’t think it was anyone in the valley, frankly,” he heard another crone prattle. “Not even that old villain Sha. He was passed out dead drunk on the back porch of the tavern when the Shrine was damaged. Even through our closed windows, you should’a’ heard his snoring.”

“It reminds me of the old days. Remember when it used to be so dangerous? Remember how we couldn’t even go out at night? Remember how we needed to hire armed escorts if we wanted to travel anywhere.”

“Don’t jinx us! Things have certainly improved since then. It’s not that bad.”

“But don’t you remember?”

“Of course, my dear. Who could forget those times? Remember how they murdered my uncle and his family?”

“Gracious! I’m sorry. I had forgotten. I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”

“Yes, and my Taka was telling me a gang of strange men had gathered out by the tombs last week. He thinks they might be living in some of the old mausoleums.”

Mr. Secretary made a note to himself to assemble a team of monks to investigate.

“Now the Masumura family’s house all burned down like that. You can’t tell me that was an accident. Do you think they were being shaken for protection money?”

“I don’t know.”

A new voice popped up, thinner and reedier than the others, someone older than the three women he’d heard so far.

“That used to be the old monastery, before they built the new one up on the mountainside.”

“The Masumura farm? It’s that old?”

“Yes, my father told me. That was back, back, back before his great-great-grandfather’s time — way back, a couple of centuries ago. It wasn’t the Temple of Great Frost back then, though. It was called something else … what was it?” The old voice broke off.

“Hime, you and your memories. You’re still pretty sharp, though. I’m always amazed by the details you remember.”

“The Temple of Singing Winds!” The old voice piped up again.

Voices clucked and cooed with surprise and approval. It was a very pretty sort of name for a monastery.

“There’s always a bit of a breeze out there, isn’t there?”

“Sir?”

“Come to think of it, there is. I’d never noticed before.”

“Sir?” A firm voice interrupted the string of conversation. Toudai was asking him a question.

Mr. Secretary was embarrassed to be caught not paying attention to his surroundings. “Sorry.”

“The mail clerk wants to know if the letter is any good, sir?”

The solidity of the young man invigorated him. He hadn’t realized how much the evidence of subterfuge and attack on the shrine had affected him — draining him of vital energy even as he investigated them — until the steady strength of Toudai’s presence lessened his feelings of vulnerability.

“It looks fine.” He handed the clipboard back.

Toudai remained there, standing, wrestling with words. Mr. Secretary had removed his reading glasses to polish them and return them to their case, but when he noticed that the younger man had something to say to him, he slipped them back on. The glasses gave him a more formidable appearance. He knew his eyes looked softer when he took them off, which was probably why Toudai, a man who never had trouble speaking his mind with straightforwardness, seemed to be struggling now.

“You … uh, work really hard for us, don’t you?”

The secretary’s eyes widened. This was very interesting.

“What I mean is, everyone works hard, but you put everything you have into what you do. You hold nothing back.” Toudai scratched the back of his head. He seemed to find this awkward, but necessary.

Mr. Secretary was surprised to hear it.

“You really—” Toudai stopped, his face red.

“Thank you.” He finally stepped in. “But why do you feel compelled to tell me this?”

“Yeah, I see why, uh, you’d want to know … um, that.” Toudai’s face scrunched up and his shoulders hunched with discomfort, something the secretary had never seen in such a self-assured man. “Some things shouldn’t have to be said. People should always do things one hundred per cent.”

“Especially if you practice Zen.” Mr. Secretary’s voice was very dry, which hid the fact that he was perfectly tickled. “And it defeats the purpose if you don’t.”

“Right, what’s the point of doing anything if you’re gonna be half-assed about it? But so few people — It’s rare to find someone who’s—”

“Willing to speak his mind with perfect frankness?” The secretary finished his sentence again, making up an entirely different conclusion.

“Yeah, about that: I, uh … For some reason, I, uh—”

“Blush and stammer like a schoolboy when I’m around?”

“Yeah, don’t know why. Weird, that.”

“You’re not much of a talker, are you?”

“Gah … usually I haven’t got a problem with it. Not sure what’s going on right now.”

“If I lived with the perfection you credit to me—” Mr. Secretary felt the verandah’s support pillar firm against his back. He felt the expectation in the silence and stillness which erupted from the laundry tubs next door, where a bunch of old ladies were holding their breaths. Of course they could hear Toudai and the secretary as clearly as they had been heard. He went in for the tease. “Then this would probably be the moment when I’m supposed to lean across and kiss you, right?”

Toudai reeled back, caught in headlights. It was exactly the reaction Mr. Secretary expected, although he didn’t expect what happened next. Toudai, realizing what he had just done, followed it up by stepping forward again. He held his arms open and presented his cheek with all the enthusiasm of someone who was just about to get their face licked all over with dog tongue — slobbery dog tongue that had just been licking smelly dog butt. No thanks!

“It’s alright,” Mr. Secretary clapped his shoulder with one hand, and fetched the clipboard with the telegraph message he’d just handed over with the other, as he swivelled past Toudai. “I don’t really confuse admiration with infatuation. We’ve got to head back for your next trial.”

He heard the old women giggle, and didn’t add the part about not having to look so relieved.

Even though the day was progressing faster than he had anticipated, even though he had to get back to Taisou as quickly as possible, Mr. Secretary waited until the clerk finished tapping out the code. He was afraid he’d start laughing until he cried if he left any sooner.

 

 

The sky had cleared and the late afternoon sunlight was bright and full when the first faction gathered in the alpine just under the dogtoothed peak’s unstable southern slope. The reflection off the snow was blinding. Mr. Secretary regretted not taking his set of sunglasses, but the weather could change at any time.

He calmly began to instruct the contenders, “Congratulations to you, members of first faction who have successfully passed through the severe trainings set for you thus far. In terms of progressing to the highest rank of sanzo priest, however, the true test starts—”

A ferocious sneeze overpowered his voice. Houmei! Not even Mr. Secretary could believe him. He heard Seiren mutter something about his lack of mental preparedness, and understood how some instructors would interpret it as insolence. The secretary knew better, though. Houmei’s antics made him a clown, but he also lightened up the crowd and mirrored their seriousness back to them. Even so, it was distracting.

Ryuzin was pushing his glasses up on his nose, as if he’d already suspected the previous trials weren’t the real tests.

“Here are the rules for the test: This snowy field is your arena. All twenty-five of you must engage in a martial arts battle without restriction. Weapons or holy power are permitted. Although you will be assessed according to your individual skills and this is an individual battle, you are free to form alliances. Please show us the skills acquired in your daily martial arts training. Since there is considerable danger involved, there are no rules against …,” Mr. Secretary cleared his throat; the very word was distasteful, “killing. Only those left standing will be deemed to have passed and may move on to the next round.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Doutaku and Shou’un cracking their knuckles. These prize-fighters were being way too cocky for the challenge Mr. Secretary knew they’d be facing.

“You have one hour.”

The crowd of acolytes began to murmur. Only a small handful remained completely sober, unmoving and silent: Houmei, Toudai, Genkai, Ryuzin, Seiren and Souzin — the rest had no idea what they were in for. Mr. Secretary closed his eyes. He still couldn’t pick up a final tally of bodies. What was it that this team needed to learn?

“The explanation was thorough.” Jikoku-sama gave him a nod of approval.

“I hope you paid attention. Try to stay alive …,” he turned to go, and then stopped. “Oh, yes, your trial begins now.”

Mr. Secretary waved a signal flag. Once the contenders faced each other, he and all the other monks proceeded up the arm of the cliff.

“Everything’s set according to my instructions?” Jikoku-sama asked as they neared the end of the path.

The entire valley stretched beneath their feet. Mists rose off the river and wisped across the pines. The fighters were as tiny as ants. Their shouts and chants and challenges were the only sounds in that hushed place, which seemed to be holding its breath.

“At your command, sir.”

“Very well,” Jikoku-sama gave the signal. “Let’s see what these boys are made of. On my mark ….”

The cap was sparked, and the explosions sent tonnes of clumping wet snow, ice, rocks and mud down the mountainside.

 

 

It was midnight before the Shroudmaker finished triple-checking the list of the fallen and missing against the bodies stacked in the crematoria.

“Those are the remaining members of the first faction?” Jikoku-sama took the scrolls.

The room was exceedingly comfortable, warmed by a small fire in the clay stove. The light of the flames danced with the shadows.

“First on the list is our infamous trailblazer, Houmei.” Mr. Secretary confirmed. “The rest are all unique individuals as well. It should take about two years to administer both the second and the final examinations. With a group like this, we won’t be able to avoid a few complications.”

Jikoku-sama laughed. “Their individuality has served us well so far, and it isn’t so overwhelming that they can’t cooperate. They pulled together at the critical moment today. The final examination is not the only means of achieving supreme priesthood, though. Day-to-day living, in itself, is a revealing test. So let’s observe, then, how these eleven colors shall blend.”

The secretary nodded, pulled off his reading glasses and leaned back against the cushions while the abbot applied his insignia to the scrolls.

“Was there anything else?” He was asked.

Mr. Secretary described what he found at the Shrine.

Jikoku-sama looked unsurprised. “They weren’t expecting us to act this swiftly in the deep midwinter. If you had waited until spring to commence with the clean-up, however, all those centipedes would’ve been an effective repellent. Tens of thousands of poisonous biting insects ….”

He nodded when the secretary recounted the old woman words about the Masamura farm. “Baa-san had it almost right. The Temple of the Singing Winds was built on a plateau at a bend in a box canyon, so it gets its share of breezes. That isn’t quite how it got its name, though.”

He tapped his index finger against the middle of his forehead. “The Crystal Mountain Shrine was known as the Eye of Buddha. It was the Shrine where initiates with a highly developed sense of inner vision went to pray. It was said that the goddess would show herself to them, personally, at that place.”

“The cliffs behind the Temple of the Singing Winds are well-eroded, as you might recall. There are lots of hoodoos and paintpots and other formations. There are also a lot of caves and tunnels. Centuries ago, there used to be mines. When the wind blows over them, they let off noises like air blowing through flutes, or like voices singing. Hence the name, although it also used to be called the Lips of the Buddha, or the Tongue of the Buddha.”

“Don’t tell me.” Mr. Secretary rolled his eyes. “There was also a place called the Nose of Buddha where a person can smell things, and the Ears of Buddha where people can hear things—”

“That little pond area where you like to go sit.” Jikoku-sama nodded, “A very sacred spot! I’m not surprised that you intuitively found it. I notice you are an excellent listener.”

Mr. Secretary knew there was one he had missed.

“The Fingers of the Buddha,” Jikoku-sama ended his suspense. “Dedicated to the sense of inner touch. Five in all.”

“The old Masamura farm. Are those tunnels still there?”

“I believe most of them have been sealed off when the old monastery was decommissioned. I’m not sure why. Perhaps they were once infested by centipedes. They seem like very good hide-outs for nefarious deeds like smuggling. The villagers used to bring their harvests and animals there in times of war. At any rate, there were all kinds of maps in our library. All the old temple’s records were brought over when the place was moved.”

A vision of office clerks shredding documents flashed through Mr. Secretary’s mind. Was it only old tax records that were being destroyed at the library? He decided to check on it before he went to bed.

In the meantime, he mentioned what one old woman had said about the old tombs and her suspicion that they were being used as a hideout.

“Assemble a team, and go investigate in the morning.” Jikoku-sama nodded.

They chatted a bit more about the various trials to come. Then, since it was, now, very early in the morning, Mr. Secretary took his leave. His head was full of thoughts as he walked toward the library, trying to piece together all the fragments of this mystery. He was so focused on what was going on beneath the surface of things, he wasn’t paying attention to what was happening around him in the moment.

That was the only way to explain it: why he never made it to his own rooms.

 

 

**Part Two:**

 

 

It felt like his skull was being pried open. The bump just above his temple kept his pulse throbbing in his ears. His tendons were stretched like frozen wires about to snap. Under the rope which bound them over his head, his wrists were worn raw. It felt like he’d been dragged to his current location by that rope. There was a dirty lump of rag jammed between his teeth, and fastened behind his neck.

From the sound of water droplets echoing through a vast stone cavern, it seemed the location was underground and where it was so dark that he couldn’t tell if his eyelids were open or shut. Ordinarily, he loved the smell of geosamin when he caught it at the start of a thunderstorm or tasted it in creek water, but here, where it overpowered every other scent, it filled him with dread. Dread, along with the cold, penetrated through all the layers of his kimonos, permeating his bones. He wondered how long he’d been out cold. He wondered if he had been left for dead.

His body ached all over, not just from stiff muscles. There were signs that he’d been kicked and pummelled as he lay unconscious. He took careful stock of all the places where his body ached. It hurt to breathe, so it seemed that some ribs were bruised or cracked or broken. His body was so tense and cold, he was shivering. His hips were in spasms.

Gingerly, he flexed and twisted his wrists, hissing as the fibers chafed and cut. He started to pick and pluck at them with his fingers — breaking each strand individually.

Even working as quickly as he could, it took hours to break through a few cords, but all he had was time. If he didn’t have the gag in his mouth, he would’ve been able to dispense with his bonds using an incantation. Unfortunately, he wasn’t gifted with the ability to summon help from the Merciful Goddess without it.

So intent was Mr. Secretary upon the task of breaking his ropes, he almost didn’t notice the sounds of voices and shuffling feet, or the gradual shift of light until they were upon him. He only had enough time to pretend he was still unconscious, closing his eyes and stilling the sound and movement of breath.

“Here we are.” The voice was familiar — male. Where had he heard it before?

“Jeez, is he even alive? Looks like he’s in a coma.”

“Believe me, he’s not dead yet.”

Without warning, a foot jabbed him in his injured ribs. He couldn’t suppress the way his body curled or his cry of pain, muffled though it was by the gag. It felt like knives were hitting his lungs.

“See?”

Reiji!

“It would’ve been better if you’d just killed him in the first place. It’s too dangerous to hold onto him. You can’t let him go. When his buddies realize he’s gone, they’re gonna come looking for him.”

“When they figure out he’s missing, they won’t know why. With this prima donna, they’ll probably think he worked himself up into a snit and left. They won’t know who’s got him. They won’t know where he is. If they ever figure it out, he’ll be long dead.”

“What do you plan to do with him?”

Fingers threaded through his hair and clutched. He felt himself being hauled up by it.

“Wakey-wakey,” the voice mocked. “Rise and shine, little sunbeam!”

He finally opened his eyes. There were at least eight of them.

“Turn him over.” Reiji started fumbling with his robes.

A hand was pulling at Mr. Secretary’s fundoshi. Reiji’s intent was unmistakeable. The secretary did what he could to fight, but there wasn’t much he could do.

 

 

He was found. He was rescued. He was alive, barely.

Mr. Secretary’s convalescence took forever.

His world — once so intricate it included the minutia of Taisou, yet so expansive, it encompassed its larger purpose, its connections with the other monasteries through China and their role in the world — caved into a hospital bed, imprisoned in thick white cotton sheets, bound with intravenous units and catheters, confined within the tedium of eating, sleeping, physio and cleansing.

Actually, because he had been in such excellent condition at the time of the ambush, the recovery only took a few months. Even with his considerable training in meditation, it was almost impossible for him to lie still for that time, however, and let others attend to him and take over his responsibilities. He felt like an eagle tethered to a stump.

From what various visitors told him, and from what he was able to piece together after the fact, while Toudai and Doutaku were on sentry duty that night, they became suspicious after a monk brought back the disgraced former gatekeeper along with a letter from the chief administrative clerk ordering his reinstatement. When Toudai quizzed the monk about it, all he could tell them was that Reiji-san had left to deal with an emergency. Both the monk and the former gatekeeper were as astonished as the sentries. Doutaku remained at the gate, while Toudai decided to consult Mr. Secretary-sama.

On his way to the secretary’s quarters, Toudai ran into Ryuzin. Even though it was after midnight, Ryuzin had just finished his discrepancies report, the one which he had been instructed to put directly into the secretary’s hands. He was as disconcerted as Toudai to learn that the secretary, too, had suddenly disappeared ‘to handle an emergency.’ They both agreed that the business smelled fishy, and decided to take it up with Jikoku-sama.

The abbot had been told of no emergency, and under no condition would Mr. Secretary-sama have left the monastery without informing him first. From the secretary’s excellent updates about the other suspicious events, Jikoku concluded that something dangerous and deeply unpleasant had happened. So he immediately dispatched groups of armed monks to find the two missing men, focusing upon the tombs and the caves under the Masumura farm. Ryuzin and Toudai were invited along, as it was their concern which brought the matter to his attention.

The monks stationed at the Crystal Mountain Shrine were alerted by cellphone, now that service had been restored in the valley. The remaining monks at Taisou were quietly awakened and joined Doutaku in fortifying their monastery against the possibility of a surprise attack.

The Masumuras were very surprised to be awakened in the dead of the night by a troop of armed monks in their courtyard, but they were only too pleased to help, especially when they learned that their benefactor, Mr. Secretary-sama, was one of the missing men, and the monks feared for his safety. The old farmer led them into the cave most likely to harbour fugitives — the deepest cave, the one rumoured to have tunnels connecting to other valleys. Hidden as it was behind a group of sandstone hoodoos, his rescuers would’ve never found the mouth to it in the darkness. Once inside, there were other dangers as well, including an old mine-shaft that opened suddenly at their feet, and a place where the roof was in imminent danger of collapse.

Although they proceeded carefully, by the time they came to the place where the secretary had been assaulted and left for dead, his captors had vanished. Only just. The fire they had lit for light and warmth was still burning.

The secretary’s naked, unconscious, brutalized body had been left in a crumpled heap of torn and bloodied kimonos.

Some of the monks pursued his attackers because of the mistaken belief that they needed to rescue the first administrative clerk, but Toudai remained behind and helped the medic respond to his friend. The secretary was still unconscious when they carried him back to Taisou on a stretcher.

The Centipede Clan had more familiarity with the passages under the mountain, and it soon became apparent that they were long gone. Another troop remained stationed at the mouth of the box canyon, but it was futile. No one else emerged.

The only things which Ryuzin’s group found at the site of the old tombs were the remains of old campfires, and other signs that the place had been used as a hide-out. Nobody was there when they arrived.

The monks on guard at the Crystal Mountain Shrine surprised a lone youkai who was hoofing it on foot over the pass, but in his effort to evade capture, he didn’t watch where he was running, fell over a cliff in the dark and crushed his skull on the rocks.

If any attack had been planned for that night upon Taisou, it was pre-empted. The old gatekeeper was taken into custody, but he knew nothing except that the chief administrative clerk had been adamant he deserved another chance. He didn’t even really want the chance. He was old and tired, and all he really wanted to do was retire and drink. He’d only listened to the clerk because he was so forceful and it was too much of a hassle to argue with him.

Based on this information, and Ryuzin’s suspicions about Reiji, they finally pieced together that the clerk was a plant working for the Centipede Clan, one of the enemy. The monks who continued to track him were called off.

This was the extent of the information which Mr. Secretary’s friends were either willing or able to tell him. He could sense there was more going on. He could feel it whenever he closed his eyes. His inner vision was as clear and bright as the world he saw when his eyes were open.

“When did the sanzos arrive?” he finally confronted Jikoku-sama.

The old monk laughed and shook his head, resigned to the fact that it was pointless to hide such things from him, “The morning after your attack.”

“They have revealed themselves to their successors?”

Jikoku-sama shook his head. “You are the only person besides me who knows they are here … unless someone betrayed them to the Centipede Clan, which is what I suspect now.”

“I never mentioned anything to Reiji. I never would have.”

“I know.”

“But, honestly! It wasn’t that difficult to figure out. Inwardly, it was almost like they announced it with trumpets and pennants. Anyone with the slightest sensitivity would’ve noticed.”

“That may be. Even without sensitivity, it wouldn’t be that difficult to calculate. We’re hosting the Buddhist Bloody Olympics, practically. Anything with any sort of sympathetic nervous system could’ve figured it out.”

“Are the sanzos still around? Surely they are no longer grouped in one place!”

But that was as much as the secretary learned. Jikoku-sama could share nothing else, since the sanzos had not brought him into their confidence either.

 

 

Whenever he had a break from his duties, Toudai would come to sit with him every day.

“You don’t have to do this,” Mr. Secretary told him.

“No, I don’t.” The big guy carried his bedpan over to the washroom, emptied and gave it a rinse with disinfectant and water.

“You have far more important things to do if you intend to attain Tenkai’s approval.” Mr. Secretary objected as Toudai gently supported him while he replaced sheets and pillowcases. Toudai’s touch felt so wonderful, it was almost unbearable.

“Probably.” Toudai agreed, tucking him in and plumping his pillows.

The secretary drew the line at receiving sponge baths from Toudai.

“The nurse asked me to take over for him tonight. I helped out so many times when you were unconscious, I can do this with my eyes closed.”

He still pushed Toudai away.

“Look, you need this or you’re going to get rashes and bed sores. The worst thing that could happen is if your incisions got infected. This makes no sense. Why won’t you let me help you?”

“That’s enough, Toudai. Don’t try to coax or cajole me.”

The secretary could not tell him how much suffering his touches — his gentle, strong, caring touches — caused. He knew that if Toudai touched him, his body would betray him. The sensuality of it would excite him. It would show. Toudai would know, and the younger man would accommodate him because he was that sort of person — not because the secretary believed Toudai desired him, not because he felt the same sort of urges the secretary did.

No, Toudai would do it out of pity. The secretary had nothing left for pity. Pity would damage him more than the original assault.

There was permanent damage. The pinhole vision out of his left eye due to a crushed retina was so disorienting, it gave him headaches.

“What are you doing?” Toudai flicked off the eyepatch he had taken to wearing. “You know the opthamologist says you might recover some of your peripheral sight if you use that eye.”

The eye doctor had mentioned something about forging new connections and synapses in the brain, but the truth was he had seen his reflection in the mirror. The eyelid had torn and even though it was healing nicely, he thought the swelling looked hideous.

“Fine.” He snatched the eye-patch back from Toudai, “But please allow me the dignity of wearing this when I have visitors. I don’t care to parade my scars.”

Toudai took his hand and held it between his own huge ones. “Other visitors. Okay, Mr. Secretary-sama? At least don’t keep yourself hidden from me. I can’t bear it when you shy away from me.”

He thought he had grown accustomed to Toudai’s honesty. It seemed that the man could still surprise him.

“That sounds like a declaration of love.” Again, he made light of his visitor’s sincerity.

Toudai shrugged.

Since the neck joint of his femur had been crushed, it needed to be fused to his pelvis with a stainless steel prosthetic. The secretary endured surgery for that, and eventually had to learn to walk all over again. Even then, he could only manage it if he supported himself with a cane.

Now the patch over his eye and swinging, off-kilter gait embarrassed him; he felt so much like a cartoon pirate.

Once again, Toudai came to his rescue, always at his side. When, after hours of walking, his heel slipped and his leg slid out from under him, Toudai instantly reached over and held him up.

The secretary froze, first from the shock of falling, and then, from those strong muscular arms which circled him and held him close, and the way his nose was pressed against that powerful chest, and how his heart raced and his face flushed and every thought seemed to be centered on how heavenly it was to be there, safe and warm, in Toudai’s arms. He looked up at Toudai in confusion.

Toudai looked down.

The expression in his eyes! The secretary couldn’t read it at all. They were so present for him, so clear, so centered and shining.

The tiniest trace of a smile tugged at Toudai’s lips.

Those lips! He was licking them just as if he planned to … and then, the secretary felt them whisper against his in a feather-light kiss. He felt them press more firmly. He felt the tip of Toudai’s tongue brush against his and he opened up, and all the strength of his body dissolved in a cascading downrush, as he was held in Toudai’s firm embrace and deeply kissed.

Then his world was upended as Toudai swept him up. The friction between their kimino fabric caused Toudai’s hair to sail up with the static electricity and stick to him.

“That’s enough exercise for today.” Toudai’s voice was so husky, it nearly cracked. “You remember what the doctor said about easy does it.”

He was carried in Toudai’s strong arms over to the bed. He was too confounded and dazzled to argue or say anything. A sudden shame for all his previous acidic remarks filled him.

“I know you,” Toudai was saying. “You’ll keep going until you collapse, but if you don’t take this slowly like you were told, you will damage yourself.”

He was tucked into his blankets, the curtains were closed and the lights turned off. Toudai leaned over to the side of his bed, kissed him lightly on the cheek, and whispered, “Please don’t damage yourself.”

After he left, the secretary simply reached over and turned on the lamp. His emotions jangled and jabbered all over the place — a wild, irrational, staggering jumble of joy and bewilderment, excitement and frustration, pleasure and confusion, surprise and irritation. It took awhile for them to calm down enough to get his thoughts together.

In the end, he was almost one-hundred per cent sure Toudai left because he didn’t want to hurt him, and that was the most exasperating thing of all.

“I’m not an invalid!” He threw his bedpan at the door. Except he was. In order to convince Toudai he was strong enough, he had to become strong enough. Yet he couldn’t do it all at once because he would end up injuring himself even more. He felt like a three-legged mouse trapped in a real live snakes-and-ladder game.

After that, Toudai stopped coming to visit him.

 

 

Not that Toudai was his only visitor. The secretary had always assumed — especially from the nickname ‘Shroudmaker’ — that he was roundly disliked and somewhat feared, but it seemed that was only the case with the office personnel that Reiji had gathered around him. He was gratified and abashed to discover he had many admirers. Ryuzin and Seiran came regularly, often together; the rest of the First Faction somewhat less frequently; and, to his immense surprise, Houmei.

Houmei brought him things he’d collected: a smooth and perfectly spherical blood-red rock, a vintage bottle full of fragrant lilies-of-the-valley, a sleek white gull feather, a robin’s nest filled with tiny blue half eggshells pecked open to release the fledglings.

The nurse finally balked, complaining about clutter and germs. So he switched to colourful observations about things he’d seen: how a sandbank full of primroses had just bloomed and made the section of the highway near the Crystal Mountain Shrine look like it was lined with rich Persian carpets; how a stork had blocked the chimney over the scripture classroom and the room was smoked out when they tried to light a fire; that a nest of mice had moved into towel room next the bathhouse, soiling everything, and turning the bath time into a comedy hour. His accounts were so vivid that Mr. Secretary felt like he’d been there, mopping the floor, blocking all the little mouseholes.

It was Houmei who brought him his first post-recovery laugh, complaining about how someone had allotted the task of striking the morning gong to a kid with somnambulism. So, not only did the wake up sound start at four o’clock sharp every day, it often struck anywhere between one and three in the morning as well, and sometimes several times a night. The only consolation for the weary was that the sound was loud enough to wake the sleepwalker up, so he couldn’t deny that he had a problem.

Houmei kept the secretary from thinking too much about himself.

But it wasn’t enough. Toudai had been right. There were other kinds of strength besides the physical type.

“This is ridiculous. My body was hurt, not my brain. I am still quite capable of handling my responsibilities,” he complained to Jikoku-sama, desperate for a distraction from the irritation and, yes, sadness which the loss of Toudai’s company brought up. In the absence of reasons for Toudai’s sudden abandonment, he had started making them up, mostly unfavourable things about himself, which drove him crazy. “I’m told that I tend to overdo it, that I exhaust myself, but how am I to resolve that if I’m not permitted to take on anything at all?”

“There is so much that needs to be done,” the abbot agreed, tapping his thumbs together. “I miss having you at my side. It still amazes me how Taisou lost both its best administrator and most destructive covert operative in one swoop. Ryuzin has done a great job with pulling out and scrutinizing everything Reiji had his fingers in so far, but he isn’t you.”

“Tell me about what he’s achieved.”

“He’s uncovered a lot of suspicious business deals and funny bookkeeping. He seems to have your nose for stuff that doesn’t sit right. I’ll tell him to keep you appraised.”

Ryuzin was delighted to bring files into the convalescence ward, and for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon, Mr. Secretary’s room looked like war room, awash in maps, documents and laptops.

One fortunate discovery was that the secretary’s hunch had been correct about Reiji combing the library for maps of the old monastery in order to destroy them. Fortunately, it looked like the task had been interrupted and many ancient documents were retrieved from the stacks slated for shredding.

“Some of these tunnels extend for miles.” Seiren gave a low whistle. “Look, this one goes right under the river and out the other side.”

One of them followed an underground water passage to somewhere directly beneath Taisou. At least that was what Mr. Secretary thought, when he took a closer look at the fraying parchment. Everyone seemed to think that the line was a stain from a water droplet gone astray against the ancient ink but the mark looked deliberate to him.

Mr. Secretary held onto a few of the maps for personal study after his participation in the rest of the administrative activities was considered finished for the day. He poured over them for hours, memorizing the different openings, caverns and tunnels.

There wasn’t nearly enough work to satisfy the secretary, but it was quite sufficient in his doctor’s opinion, which trumped all. Since it was better than nothing — so much better than nothing that the secretary couldn’t even begin to express his relief — he kept his complaints to himself and was careful to follow all of the doctor’s orders, apart from his early morning purview of secret maps.

The secretary had almost no recollection of what transpired in the cave, just a vague memory of excruciating pain, violation and confusion tied together with Reiji’s face and voice. Fortunately, after the stitches in his backside had dissolved, he learned that there was no permanent muscle or nerve damage.

The bruises and swelling that had covered most of his body were gone within a month.

The broken and crushed bones, especially the ones in his hips, took much longer.

The worst injuries were all invisible.

 

 

“Do you want to know what bothers me most?” He spontaneously asked Houmei during one of his random visits. “All the unanswered questions about the Centipede Clan and what they wanted.”

Houmei’s expression became thoughtful.

“With so many sutras at stake, does it really take that much to figure out?” He was reminded. “We’ve all been alerted to their interest now, even the villagers.”

“Yes, but we never learned what they planned to do with the sutras in the first place.” He reached for his cane and pulled himself out of the bed. “What was it all about? What does it have to do with us? Why did they need an agent right here, within Taisou? What do they want?”

He clomped over to the window. “Like everyone else, I have to assume they were after the scriptures, but why? It isn’t like they can profit from them. They can’t use them to acquire more things. In fact, it’s highly unlikely they’d even be able to unlock their powers. A person needs spiritual energy for that. Are they working for someone?”

He stopped muttering. It had started off as a performance to pique Houmei’s curiosity, and ended up a dissolute ramble which he couldn’t even maintain.

Outside, it became apparent that spring had arrived without him. A scattershot row of plum trees in blossom waved from the path leading up to the monastery, a touch of feminine magnetism in a place dominated by men. He hadn’t developed enough strength to make it down all those stairs without a handrail, so he couldn’t go down to admire them. He opened the windows and, though the air was cool and fresh, it was filled with the sweetness of flowers.

There was a thread of truth in his complaint, however: “I feel like I can’t rest without knowing why they want the sutras so badly, or at least why they want to determine who controls them. I keep expecting them to strike again at any time, but for what? And why?”

Houmei was unusually quiet for the rest of the visit. When the nurse came in to bundle Mr. Secretary-sama back into bed and inform his visitor it was almost time to leave, he started opening windows and scolding the young monk — “What are you doing? You aren’t allowed to smoke in here!”

Houmei waited until the nurse left and told the secretary, “I’m not trained to do the specialized stuff you seem to want from me. I’m not clever that way and I’d mess up. Although I want to help Taisou, and there are ways I think I can — just not those ways. Seiran-sempai is probably the person you’re looking for.”

The secretary looked him straight in the eye. “Seiran, huh?”

“Although I’m pretty sure he’s working with Ryuzin on this already. The two of them get along quite well together. Shall I get him?”

“No, that’s fine. Thank you for listening to me complain.”

Houmei looked surprised.

“Thank you for sharing this with me,” he replied.

Before walking out the door, however, he turned and raised his index finger. “There is one thing I’ve always been meaning to ask you.”

A danger current surged through the secretary.

“It concerns the sanzo tests. That’s what we’re here for, right?”

“I cannot discuss the results of the past examinations, Houmei-kun. I cannot tell you what you will face in the future, either.”

“I know.” A shard of irritation slashed across the young man’s face. “What I want to ask has nothing to do with that.”

“Very well, what is it then?”

“When you and the other monks who arrange the tests for sanzo — when you were planning the Avalanche Challenge … ”

“Yes?”

“Didn’t it occur to you that there was something unbalanced about it? Killing off so many people who were trying their best?”

The usual rationalizations jumped to Mr. Secretary’s lips, the perfect logic of duality unscrolling in a neutrality of life or death in the realms of Maya, the all-illusion and ephemerality of it in the constancy of change unpacking itself into an artful arrangement of madness and chaos. It sounded good. It sounded glib.

It sounded like bullshit. Houmei knew it. Mr. Secretary knew it.

“But they would have tried to kill you,” stumbled past his lips. “By forcing a situation where one must choose to join forces in cooperation, we remove those who refuse, who work only for themselves.”

Houmei nodded, absorbing this, seeming to agree with it. Then he asked, “Was there no other way? No better way?”

The only thing the secretary could think of to say was about tradition, how this had been the way it was done since the inception of Taisou — and what a threadbare and shabby excuse it now seemed. He had changed the Frozen River Trial as a result of a needless death. He had changed it so that only one faction took part in it at a time, instead of four, so the argument about tradition didn’t cut it.

“There probably was,” he admitted. “I just didn’t think of it.”

He didn’t tell Houmei about how he’d changed the Frozen River Trial though, since it would just sound like he was making excuses for himself.

He had been found. He had been rescued. He was still alive. That was enough.

The young man gave him a rueful smile before he finally left, and the secretary knew that would be the last he would hear of it. He sank back into his pillows with a heavy sigh.

Houmei’s plaintive tenor rose next to his open window, “Toudai-kun, you’re going to have to find a better hiding place. I nearly tripped over you.”

By the time, he pulled himself back out of bed and thumped back over the window, they were both gone.

 

 

Five months after he had been pulled half-dead from the caves, Mr. Secretary found himself at the top of the stairs leading down from Taisou’s front gates. It was the first time he’d felt sun on his head in all that time. Beneath his feet, the valley swayed and heaved, a sea of moving branches, grasses and leaves animated by a brisk wind.

He carefully edged his foot downward until he felt solid stone firm beneath his sole. The difficult part was where he shifted his weight — the dizzying, terrifying moment when he wasn’t sure whether his hip would hold. Even though he had practiced on other steps — longer steps, narrower steps — there had always been a safety net in the form of a handrail. This time, he had nothing to grip if he lost his balance.

By the fifth step down, he could feel Toudai’s eyes boring into his back so intently that he sat down. With a half-laugh, half-sigh, he said, “I know you’re there. I know you’ve been following me, watching over me. You might as well come out, Toudai-kun.”

“I didn’t mean to interfere with your exercise.”

“You haven’t. You won’t. Walk beside me. That way, if I run out of energy, I can grab onto you.”

“Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?”

The secretary leveled his most piercing stare at him. “I don’t intend to actually grab onto you.”

Toudai muttered something about that being a pity, but Mr. Secretary was in no mood to field flirtatious deflections.

“Serves you right for nominating yourself as my secret bodyguard and ignoring me for weeks on end.”

“Right. In my defense, I was tired of acting like a fool every time I was around you.”

“By acting like the biggest fool of all?”

Toudai’s face flared. “I guess I deserved that.”

“I’m pretty ticked off with you right now. I think what you did qualifies as an emotional hit-and-run, don’t you?” He thought about brandishing his cane for emphasis, and decided it would undermine the seriousness of his feelings.

“I didn’t want to implicate you in a scandal.”

“What? A scandal? Over you and me? Here? What a crashing bore. I think the level we’re working at precludes that sort of petty preoccupation, don’t you?”

“It was a sad excuse, I know.”

“Why didn’t you ask me what I thought? Am I so unapproachable?”

Toudai wisely bit his tongue.

“And then you stalk me for months….”

“I won’t apologize for that. The Centipede Clan would take advantage of your injuries to strike at you again. I won’t allow it.”

There was that strength, the power and leadership required to become a sanzo.

“You’re unfair, forgetting my purpose for being here at Taisou.” Toudai’s voice sharpened. Then he shook it off, as though deciding that he had more to lose by winning a defensive argument than it was worth.

Mr. Secretary sat and stared at him awhile. Toudai did not fidget or flinch or dart his eyes away. He stood strong and clear, so the secretary rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Come here. I’ve decided I want your strength after all. Lend me your arm.”

It felt good to tuck his hand around that perfect bicep, and feel the health, vitality and warmth radiating off the man standing next to him.

“What made you decide I needed protection?”

“You need to ask!” Toudai cried.

“In other words, you have no leads, no suspects, no evidence that there are more thousand-hand clan members in Taisou?”

“As you can imagine, it’s difficult to find operatives who haven’t been activated yet.”

“It makes me feel pitiable, the way you’ve been following me. I’m not entirely without—aah!” It was good that Toudai was there, or he would’ve catapulted down the long climb. “See? I’m distracted. Your presence distracts me. I feel completely self-conscious.”

“Mr. Secretary-sama—”

“And another thing: it’s high-time you started calling me something else.” He knew he sounded peevish and childlike. He couldn’t stop himself. “I’m sick of being identified solely by function, especially when it hasn’t been my sole function for almost half a year.”

It was time to move on in every sense of the word.

“It never was your sole function.” Toudai muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

He struggled down the stairs in silence, gripping Toudai’s arm and reconnecting to the knowledge that, beneath this conflict and irritation, he liked this particular man very much and he definitely found the man attractive.

“Any ideas?”

“Not a one.”

“It’s a bit sudden. I shouldn’t expect anyone to pull a good name out of the air like that. Let’s try a different tack: are you partial to any names in particular?”

“Nothing that would suit you.”

“Oh?”

“Bowzer … Scout … Mittens … Betty … I’m sure they’re not what you had in mind.”

They were almost at the bottom of the stairs by now. It was almost safe to smack him.

“If you can’t manage that, there is something else I want you to do.” The secretary released his arm as he set his foot upon the path.

“Gladly.”

A flock of grackles rode the wind from one copse of trees to another, with a noisy racket like teenagers hopping from desk to desk in a classroom. Mr. Secretary felt like a teenager just then — like something untamed in the wind was blowing through him, infecting him with its sense of inconsequence, irrationality and freedom. He was so tired of being tied to the earth. Instead of hopping around on his gimped leg, he wanted to fly, to be carried by the wind.

“Ask.”

“Then join with me in that sheltered wood over there.”

Toudai stared at the secretary. The secretary half-expected him to respond as though he was being sarcastic — as he usually was — and walk away. Instead, Toudai stayed at his side until they were deep into the forest.

It was a trick to totter past stands of bracken and the pungent rot of deadfall, but the secretary eventually made it and he wasn’t too exhausted by the time he found a boulder of suitable size, shape and moss-coveredness. The effort left him panting heavily, though, so he placed a hand on Toudai’s chest and pushed.

Dutifully, the big man sat.

The secretary took in his rugged features and clear eyes, the skin which was well on its way to the colour and texture of tanned leather, his power and health.. It was so perfect. But for all that strength, it was so vulnerable. A bullet, a knife, a nasty viral strain — even the strongest human bodies were so delicate. The secretary had been a strong man, yet he had been overpowered.

He edged between Toudai’s knees and slowly, carefully eased himself to the ground.

Toudai started to protest, began to rise to his feet, but the secretary stopped him, eyes flashing, daring him to subvert his decision.

He slid his hands up Toudai’s thighs, holding what he could of them in his hands. They were solid and strong, the legs of an athlete.

He watched as Toudai sank down — although his sigh, with its tone of resignation, was less-than-gratifying — then quickly and somewhat clumsily, the secretary lifted the hem of Toudai’s gi, untied and pulled the bottoms free and let the cloth fall away. He took Toudai in his hands and gently started to lick him, enjoying the sensation of his growing hardness against the moist softness of his mouth. Smaller, more encouraging sounds reached his ears, causing his own excitement to mount.

Toudai was very clean. Only the faintest musk sparked the secretary’s senses. From the sunkissed colour of his skin, the secretary had expected a stronger taste and scent.

Toudai’s breathing grew very deep as the secretary grew more adventurous, sucking him in deeper, reveling in the silkiness of fine, wet skin against his tongue, the slight salty taste, the softness of its texture next to the size and firmness and shape.

In time, he could hear gasps and feel muscles clenching and releasing. Huge fingers slid through his hair, gripped and, just as suddenly, let go. A natural rhythm took over which allowed him to focus on how much he enjoyed this.

Suddenly, he felt Toudai’s hands batting urgently at his shoulders, urging him off. Instead, he wound his arms around tree-trunk thighs instead and kept clinging.

Warmth and wetness surged into his mouth, and he swallowed.

The sight of Toudai’s chest rising and falling made his heart beat in a curious synchopation. Toudai’s eyes looked glassy. He kept a hand over his mouth, as though his own soft moans and sighs were enough to call up an alarm.

The secretary used Toudai’s thighs to lever himself back onto his feet. His muscles were stiff from sitting.

“I thought I would get you all nice and wet, and then climb on your lap,” he said, with a rueful smile. “But I haven’t got anything to prepare myself with, and I haven’t done anything like this since—”

He was going to say something about since he was a teenager, but the memory of his recent horror returned. He stopped smiling.“It wouldn’t have worked.”

When Toudai stood up and loomed over him, his face was so thunderous and resolute, the secretary felt he had made a terrible miscalculation. He had forgotten just how huge and muscular this man was. He couldn’t believe his own capacity for self-delusion and presumption. The thought that Toudai might not have wanted this had never occurred to him. Shocked and disappointed in himself, he started to stammer out an apology.

Before the first plea was past his lips, however, he was upended and firmly placed, not dropped — such was Toudai’s strength — on his stomach on a blanket of moss. The skirt of his kimono was carefully folded up and over his waist, exposing everything. In his mind’s eye, the secretary could see all the angry red scars, the misshaped femur, his skin pale and greyish white. He struggled to cover it up again, and earned a gentle swat on his buttocks — the good side, the side that didn’t undergo surgery.

“Hey!” he cried. “That’s enough.”

“You’re not serious.” Toudai’s voice was sharp with disbelief. “You can’t possibly be satisfied with that.”

Memories of being held down and tortured returned. The secretary started to struggle in earnest, verging on panic.

“Okay, okay! Easy, easy!” Toudai stopped. He backed off, then came forward again to help him adjust his robes and shift to a sitting position.

“It’s just that I had some of this.” Toudai held out a tiny pot of clear, sticky looking salve. “It’s glycerine-based. I just wanted to, um … spread the joy

.”

The secretary shrank. “I thought you were furious with me.”

“Never.” Toudai sat next to him. “From the way you took charge there, though, I figured it was okay for me to — that you were, uh, eager for this.”

Until the moment when he stopped being in control, he was up for the task. At the moment, he felt considerably less perky.

“You know, you send off a lot of vibes about being strong and confident for someone who is so unsure of himself,” Toudai remarked. “I’m only saying this because it’s a bit misleading, and I don’t want to do anything you don’t want.”

The secretary nodded. “I’ve just surprised myself with how insecure I’ve grown. I am attracted to you and I want this, but you’re fiercely strong and a big man to boot. Given recent history, I need to control how it goes. Is that a problem?”

“Only up to the part where I lose control of myself — which will definitely happen at some point. That’s the thing about sex, isn’t it? Would you be able to trust me?”

“Can you trust yourself?”

Toudai wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at. “I didn’t intend to catch, didn’t think that’s what you wanted — although I would, if that’s what it took.”

“No, I don’t think that would really work for me, either.” Mr. Secretary started to pick himself off the ground. He was laughing – mainly to keep himself from shouting with frustration and self-disgust. “Well, that was the unsexiest love-making I’ve ever made. I didn’t think it was possible to be so clumsy and awkward and so out of tune with the moment or my own body. I guess sex isn’t like riding a bicycle after all.”

Toudai reached over and pulled him onto his lap. “It isn’t possible for you to be unsexy.”

“I’m bitter and old, Mr. Candidate.” He cut off Toudai’s protests as he struggled to pull himself free. “My body’s shot. I see monsters behind every bush. My rage burns hotheaded and foolish enough that happier people can mock me; my misery is obvious enough to make them laugh. I wish I could say it was all because of Reiji, and from the pain and humiliation of that ordeal, but I lost my dignity years ago.”

“Hush!”

“Years and years and years ago, I was glowing and the sweetness of life flowed through me and made this world better. Somewhere along the way, I lost it. Reiji was just stepping into the role in reality that I’ve created for him. I’m debased and fallen. If I can’t have sex, it isn’t because of you. Not because of you at all, dear, beautiful man.”

“Even though you think these things, won’t you let me embrace you? I may not know anything about what you once were. I have no new name to give you, but I certainly know who you are.”

“Oh? And who is that?”

Toudai pulled him close and, with a gentle kiss on the cheek, said, “What can I say or do to put your heart at peace?”

“It isn’t you.” His voice sounded plaintive and thin. His heart felt like a hard little walnut rattling around in an oversized tin can of a chest, knocking painfully against its sides. He tried to lean into Toudai’s chest and relax, but his restlessness wouldn’t let him sit still.

“It isn’t you.” His fists were full of Toudai’s kungfu jacket, and he shook his head to and fro in denial. “It isn’t you.”

Suddenly, in that moment came the sound he had been expecting for months. A din rose from the monastery and Taisou’s great bell pealed its announcement of attack so loudly that the valley resounded with its echoes. The attack had been so predicted, his only response was to let out a heavy sigh of anticlimactic resignation as he finally pulled himself off Toudai’s lap and the forest floor.

“Where did they come from?” Toudai cried. “We overlooked the entire Valley when we were on the stairs, and there wasn’t a dust-cloud to be seen anywhere.”

The secretary described details from the maps he had been studying. “A small tunnel follows an underground creek which stretches out from the caverns behind the Masumura farm, and they followed it to our water-well and climbed up through that.”

Toudai looked stunned.

“What did you think when we posted you on alternating sentry duty between there and the front gate? That we were trying to keep people from drinking the water?”

“Yeah.” Toudai nodded. “I’m sorry to say, that’s exactly what I thought.”

The secretary burst out laughing. “Oh, no, the poor, thirsty buggers! We’ve known about this secret passage for months.”

The bell’s tolling redoubled.

Toudai hesitated, confused, swaying between his urge to run and assist in the monastery’s defenses or to stay put and stand guard.

“Go on!” Mr. Secretary scolded him. “Nobody except you knows where I am. I’m safer here and of no use in a fight up there. I’ll be alright.”

With one last lurch of uncertainty, Toudai ran, thrashing through the underbrush.

After he was gone, Mr. Secretary limped over to the moss-covered stone where he had sat his charge down for their one and only sexual encounter. He gingerly lowered himself onto the rock, closed his eyes and tried to stretch his inner senses outward in order to perceive who, if any, would die. The wildness that had swept through him all afternoon like the wind became clear.

All along, he had known the Centipede Clan would try to complete what they had left unfinished, yet he could tell from the distant shouts, gunfire and explosions that this wasn’t anywhere near the full force they were capable of mounting, which meant …

He reached for his cellphone and speed-dialed the Crystal Mountain Shrine. “The owner of this number is unable to answer your call at this time. Please try again.”

All he reached at the Masumura’s number was their answering machine.

On the inner levels, he could only pick up a busy signal.

A faint smell of wood smoke tickled a sneeze out of him. He stuffed the phone back into his pocket, and decided that frailty wasn’t enough of an excuse to stay out of the fight. So he gathered himself up and started hobbling back to the compound.

He only made it as far as the pathway under Taisou’s front steps. There, the sound of battle rose with shouts and the clang of weapons. Either the bullets had run out, or someone had disarmed the gunman and disposed of the gun for there were no more pistol shots. Nor were there any more explosions beyond the sounds of big things falling over or colliding with other big things. Inwardly, he could feel the percussion of holy incantations and mudhras invoked against dark spells.

At least one loud “doloooonga-llooong” told him the ropes holding up their temple bell had been severed. From the shouting, it sounded as though it fell on some poor bastard’s feet and probably broke his legs rolling over them.

The second the secretary put his foot on the stairs, a man charged out of the front gate, as though running for his life. He carried a crossbow and a bandolier of bolts, only half of which had been used.

“Reiji!” Unbidden, the name spilled from the secretary’s lips in his shock.

It startled his former underling, and brought unwanted attention to him.

“Shroudmaker-kun, look at you!” the former clerk jeered. “Did you miss me that much? So much that you’ve come all the way down just meet me and get some more?”

As the secretary looked around for a good stout bough to use as a bo-staff, Reiji managed to affect an insulting saunter for half the distance down the long stairs.

“Too bad for you, I don’t go for sloppy … seconds.” He gloated. “My dick shrivels up at the thought of it. But I’m sure I can find a spare knife or something that wouldn’t mind satisfying you.”

The plum tree yielded a perfect bough. It was covered with broken twigs that had hardened into tough, sharp spines. The secretary tested its heft. He had never directly killed anyone before – not even the acolyte who had drowned during the first Frozen River trial. That had been an accident.

The secretary never noticed the presence that loomed up behind him until Reiji dropped his sneer and stopped climbing down. This is when he turned and —

He hadn’t seen that face in over fifteen years. The high priest’s hands were closed in prayer and the sutra rippled in the waves of chi which flowed off his body.

Reiji lifted his crossbow and chose to take careful aim instead, muttering, “Fish in a barrel.”

Behind him, the gates of Taisou swung open again as Toudai came bounding out.

“Mr. Secretary-sama!” His voice erupted as strongly as a blast of chi. The secretary would’ve never thought such a powerful voice could be pulled from such an even-tempered man!

It hit Reiji just as he cranked additional tension into his bow, and twisted around to see who was behind him. The surprise combined with the strange angle were enough to cause him to lose his footing, topple from his precarious perch and bounce and somersault from stair to stair, all the way down.

Even if Reiji’s skull hadn’t smashed in by the time he rolled to a standstill at the secretary’s feet, he would certainly have died from being shot through the neck by his own crossbow. His body lay in a rag-doll’s flop, arms and legs twisted oddly. There was a sense of imminence to his corpse, like it would re-animate at any second – a trick of the weird twist, out of which any living man would’ve rolled. It took a few moments to accept that he had to be dead.

The only thing left for Mr. Secretary to do, by the time he hobbled over, was kick some dust of road along with a corner of Reiji’s cloak over his shattered pate like a shroud.

His heart beat was still thumping like the recently deceased mid-tumble when he heard the sanzo’s quiet voice from behind him, “Please let Jikoku know that the Masumuras are safe and the Shrine is secure.”

When he turned to ask if any more assistance was required, the high priest had vanished.

 

 

One wonderful thing about walking, badly, with a cane was that nobody seriously expected the secretary to clean up, or do anything else besides sit prominently and direct traffic. He found this especially difficult, and only managed because Ryuzin threatened to tie him to the chair.

“We could try that.” From behind, Toudai dipped next to his ear to murmur. “It might be fun.”

“What was that?” Ryuzin blinked in confusion at the secretary, but Toudai had already moved along.

Mr. Secretary had a heightened sensitivity to all things related to Toudai, from his exact position at all times to every hooded glance cast in his direction. The man would find any excuse to touch him. Their fingers would brush as Toudai handed him a cup of tea. His hair fell, like a shawl, over Mr. Secretary’s shoulder as he leaned down to look at an architectural draught. With each touch, he felt himself separating from the busy world of the monastery into a quieter, private world as though everything outside the two of them had ceased to exist. His body started to thrum in anticipation, each moment growing more intense and electric.

There was another sort of quiet and contained ecstasy in recognizing with what confidence Toudai took control. The secretary knew where this would absolutely, and in the shortest order, lead. It was as inevitable as the smudged-away faces of the doomed drawn in his mind. So he could relax and let it happen.

The connection and energy grew so strong, the secretary barely registered when Jikoku-sama brought him the news that Reiji’s brother had been the monk who had died in the Frozen River Trial. It took about fifteen minutes to sink in, and even then, it lacked consequence or any sort of inner import. Later, he put it down to a release in karmic attachment between the three of them, that there was nothing left for him to unite within himself.

When the day’s efforts were finally wrapped up, the secretary found himself on Toudai’s arm being walked back to his quarters.

“What do you think of the name ‘Kisho’?” Toudai asked.

“You think I’m quiet?”

“No, I feel quiet around you.”

So, that was what it was! – Just like the way he felt with regard to Toudai’s strength.

“I like it,” he said, walking into his sleeping chamber and pulling Toudai in after him.

The last trace of light he caught as he shut the door was the full moon rising over the Valley.

_— fin —_


End file.
